GE to Clementia [Mrs. Peter Alfred] Taylor, London, 1 August 1865
Title
GE to Clementia [Mrs. Peter Alfred] Taylor, London, 1 August 1865
Title
GE to Clementia [Mrs. Peter Alfred] Taylor, London, 1 August 1865
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
Clementia [Mrs. Peter Alfred] Taylor
Date(s)
- 1865-08-01
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to Clementia [Mrs. Peter Alfred] Taylor, London, 1 August 1865
Text: Cross, II, 406-408.
I received yesterday the circular about the Mazzini Fund. 367 Mr Lewes and I would have liked to subscribe to a tribute to Mazzini, or to a fund for his use, of which the application was defined and guaranteed by his own word. As it is, the application of the desired fund is only intimated in the vaguest manner by the Florentine committee. The reflection is inevitable, that the application may ultimately be the promotion of conspiracy, the precise character of which is necessarily unknown to subscribers.
Now, though I believe there are cases in which conspiracy may be a sacred, necessary struggle against organised wrong, there are also cases in which it is hopeless, and can produce nothing but misery; or needless, because it is not the best means attainable of reaching the desired end; or unjustifiable, because it resorts to acts which are more unsocial in their character than the very wrong they are directed to extinguish: and in these three supposable cases it seems to me that it would be a social crime to further conspiracy even by the impulse of a little finger, to which one may well compare a small money subscription.
I think many persons to whom the circular might be sent would take something like this view, and would grieve, as we do, that a proposition intended to honour Mazzini should come in a form to which they cannot conscientiously subscribe.
I trouble you and Mr Taylor with this explanation, because both Mr Lewes and I have a real reverence for Mazzini, and could not therefore be content to give a silent negative.
Text: Cross, II, 406-408.
I received yesterday the circular about the Mazzini Fund. 367 Mr Lewes and I would have liked to subscribe to a tribute to Mazzini, or to a fund for his use, of which the application was defined and guaranteed by his own word. As it is, the application of the desired fund is only intimated in the vaguest manner by the Florentine committee. The reflection is inevitable, that the application may ultimately be the promotion of conspiracy, the precise character of which is necessarily unknown to subscribers.
Now, though I believe there are cases in which conspiracy may be a sacred, necessary struggle against organised wrong, there are also cases in which it is hopeless, and can produce nothing but misery; or needless, because it is not the best means attainable of reaching the desired end; or unjustifiable, because it resorts to acts which are more unsocial in their character than the very wrong they are directed to extinguish: and in these three supposable cases it seems to me that it would be a social crime to further conspiracy even by the impulse of a little finger, to which one may well compare a small money subscription.
I think many persons to whom the circular might be sent would take something like this view, and would grieve, as we do, that a proposition intended to honour Mazzini should come in a form to which they cannot conscientiously subscribe.
I trouble you and Mr Taylor with this explanation, because both Mr Lewes and I have a real reverence for Mazzini, and could not therefore be content to give a silent negative.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to Clementia [Mrs. Peter Alfred] Taylor, London, 1 August 1865, Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/93573